Sharma’s challenge was, however, directed to the government-driven national database critics. Following this, he was trolled and few ethical hackers even deposited Re 1 to his bank account, and claimed to have exposed his account numbers of five different banks. Muntazir Abbas | ETTelecom | Updated: July 31, 2018, 13:13 IST

NEW DELHI: A person’s banking details should have not come out, the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney said while defending the telecom regulator Ram Sewak Sharma who challenged the Twitterati if anyone could do a harm, after posting his Aadhaar number.

Sharma’s challenge was, however, directed to the government-driven national database critics. Following this, he was trolled and few ethical hackers even deposited Re 1 to his bank account, and claimed to have exposed his account numbers of five different banks.

On asking about hackers depositing Re 1 into Sharma’s bank account, Sawhney said, “Personal account details should not come out,” and added that by doing a mere Internet search, many things appear online, if one’s name and details are available.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), responding to the telecom regulator’s Aadhaar hack, in a statement on Saturday said that the details were not fetched from UIDAI database servers, and the ‘so called’ hacked information was already available in the public domain as he being a public servant for decades.

MeitY’s top official, however, added that data pertaining to public figures or a person with visible position, is readily available by doing a simple online search.

Sharma served as a director general of the UIDAI, during the UPA-II regime, from 2009-2013, and later moved on to become the chief secretary of Jharkhand and secretary at the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY), and in August 2015, he has become chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

Deposits of Re 1 was made to Sharma’s Bank of India account via Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) by hackers who also claimed to have banking details pertaining to his accounts with the State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank (PNB), ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

“Concerned sectors always take care and it is for regulated entities to take tremendous care,” Sawhney said, on Trai’s chief baking details being exposed to hackers, following his Aadhaar challenge on Saturday.

One user, Rahul Dhiman, however, prepared a fake Aadhaar with Sharma’s UID and claimed to have uploaded it on both Facebook and Amazon Cloud Services, to use services under his name, in a challenge to make possible harm to him using his national ID number.

Ethical hackers that include Elliot Alderson, Karan Saini and Pushpendra Singh claimed to have exposed Sharma’s personal details such as mobile number, residential address, date of birth, PAN number and bank account numbers, and in addition, on the basis of registered mobile number with the state air carrier, hackers even obtained his Air India’s frequent flyer ID, after a comfortable chat with Air India customer support.

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After PSU banks, the government is likely to infuse capital in two chronically ill telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL, and the Union Cabinet is likely to take a decision on 4G spectrum allocation to them by the third week of the current month after DoT places the note before it for consideration.

At a high-level meeting at the PMO late Tuesday, it was also decided that the two telcos will frame a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to reduce their employee strength, which will be followed by a reduction in the retirement age to 58.